


All Relevant Inquiries

by YesBothWays



Series: The Body's Intelligence Could Rival The Mind's [3]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Queer Relationship, nerds, rationals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 03:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4163145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These two nerds finally actually talk about sex.  Cosima learns a lot of Delphine's backstory.  A lot of headcanon presented for this ship in this particular story to offer one version of how to make sense of their utterly confusing relationship  in the canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Relevant Inquiries

            Cosima was going to head to Felix's a bit later. But for now, she came to sit beside Delphine on the couch. At the last moment, she changed her mind and sort of slid in and lay down with her head in Delphine's lap. Delphine lifted her arm to let her. Cosima nestled herself into the cushions with exaggerated, delighted movements imitating a dog as it rubbed its back in the grass. She made a grin up at Delphine, as she did, and Delphine laughed softly at her.  She reached to touch Cosima's chest.

            They had just finished some breakfast. Cosima had slept in Delphine's bed for the first time the night before. They had to figure out how to share her only pillow. They had ordered a pizza at midnight and stayed awake to eat a nice part of it. When Cosima had woken up around nine, Delphine had already awoken and gone to get some things from her favorite market a few blocks away. She made them cheese and spinach omelets and a lightly toasted half of a baguette with butter.

            Delphine looked closely at Cosima's face. She seemed thoughtful, which was nothing unusual, except that Cosima felt somehow that her thoughts were not on science at this particular moment. She took Cosima's hand and looked over it, as if to study it.

            "What are you thinking about?" Cosima asked her eagerly. Delphine laughed softly. She gave a small shrug. There was a silence.

            "Have you been with a lot of women?" Delphine said. She seemed curious and noncommittal. Cosima turned a bit to look more directly up at her face.

            "Maybe," Cosima said. "That depends on what counts as a lot. Any women would probably count as a lot in some circles, y'know."  

            "Dozens?" Delphine said.

            "Uh, more than one dozen, so kind of dozens," Cosima said.

            "Have you been with men before?" Delphine asked. She had a soft, inquiring tone, as she spoke. Cosima was excited by her questions. They never actually talked about sex before this.

            "Yes, but only queer men and usually with other women present at the same time," Cosima said.

            "Like a ménage à trios, you mean?" Delphine asked.

            "Yes. I think," Cosima said.

            "You're very wild," Delphine said, as she raised one eyebrow. She seemed slightly impressed. Cosima grinned at her.

            "No," Cosima said. "We all knew each other – all sweet people. I'm just very postmod."

            "Postmodern," Delphine repeated after her in full. Her voice came a bit soft. "I used to think that I was very old-fashioned."

            "Why?" Cosima asked.

            "Because I related to sex more rationally than emotionally," Delphine said.

            "Did I ruin all that for you?" Cosima asked her in preemptive delight.

            "I think maybe, at least the old-fashioned part," Delphine said.

            "So how many lovers have you had?" Cosima asked in return. She grinned eagerly at Delphine, as she waited. Delphine's expression remained steady.

            "I've never counted, but not a dozen, closer to a half, I think," Delphine said.

            "Boys?" Cosima asked. Delphine laughed softly at this.  

            "Yes," Delphine said.

            "Good sex? Wild?" Cosima asked.

            "Some good. Nothing wild, though," Delphine said.

            "Fair," Cosima said.

            Cosima didn't actually want to pry, even though she was deeply curious. She always wondered what people were like sexually, especially how people she was with were with other lovers besides herself. Especially Delphine who seemed already so different with her from what she'd experienced from the past, by Cosima's read on her. Delphine kept on steadily in her own inquiry.

            "Do you have one of those things?" Delphine asked. "Those, what are they called? Those phalluses?" Cosima burst into laughter at this.  

            "Do I have a strap-on, you mean?" Cosima asked.

            "Strap-on… that's not the word," Delphine said.

            "A dildo, you mean," Cosima said.

            "Yes," Delphine said.

            "A strap-on is for, like, how you wear it, on your body, if you don't want to hold it in your hand, or, like, get one that goes two ways," Cosima said.

            "Mm," Delphine said. "Okay. You have one of those?"

            "Do you?" Cosima asked her first.

            "No," Delphine said. "I only have one sex toy." She held up her finger in an assertive gesture.

            "What if it breaks?" Cosima said with some urgency.

            "Then I would buy another one," Delphine said with a soft laugh, as if this were a silly question.

            "What is it?" Cosima said then with another open grin. She would have been unable to hide her delight, even if she had been willing to try.

            "It's simple, just a vibrator. An expensive one, though," Delphine said.

            "That goes inside?" Cosima asked.

            "No. It's just for the outside. Sort of flat, like this," Delphine said, as she made the shape with her hand. Cosima thought about that and grew very distracted for a moment.

            "Have you used it with lovers before?" Cosima asked. Delphine looked slightly taken aback by the question.

            "The idea never occurred to me," Delphine said. Cosima tried to bring the focus off Delphine again, so she went back to Delphine's question before.

            "Yes, I do have dildos and a strap-on harness," Cosima said.

            "More than one?" Delphine asked, curiously. Cosima gave a severe sound and a nod. "Why?" Delphine asked. Cosima might have teased, but the question came out with such candor that she decided to just explain.

            "Um, for a few reasons," Cosima said. " Like some are different sizes. I have one that doesn't evoke a penis with how it looks."

            "How not?" Delphine asked as her brows flicked together for a moment.

            "It's shaped different, like thicker at the end than at the base. And it's this pastel purple and white, marbled color," Cosima explain. Delphine still looked a bit confused. Cosima went on to explain. "I like them all, but some everybody is different, y'know? Like some people don't like to have, like, biologically male bodies evoked in their sex." Cosima wondered if that was too much information for Delphine.

            "You should show them to me someday," Delphine said.

            "Why's that?" Cosima asked with another enormous grin. Delphine didn't answer, so Cosima just blatantly asked, as her body shifted in excitement. "You interested in trying one out?" Delphine gave a slight shrug.

            "Maybe," Delphine said. Cosima got a little bit more serious. She felt herself adjust her glasses. She was the one in a joking mood, not Delphine. She should get on the level if she wanted solid information.

            "Are you serious? 'Cause if you are, I will totally buy one and bring it over here," Cosima said. Delphine laughed, and the she leaned down to kiss Cosima.

            "If you are so eager, then maybe you should," Delphine said. "I would try it."

            "Enough said," Cosima said. "No pressure, though, if you're not down then."

            "Okay," Delphine said, lightly. She looked closely at Cosima's hand again for a moment. "Where do you keep them?" Delphine asked her abruptly. Cosima felt thrown for half a second by the question.

            "What?" Cosima asked. "My sex toys?" Delphine nodded. This seemed like a very strange question to Cosima. "In an antique hat box near my bed."

            "I did not notice it," Delphine said.

            "Were you looking?" Cosima asked. She meant to tease Delphine for snooping in her apartment.

            "No," Delphine said. "I was distracted." She gave a look that made it clear that she meant by Cosima and turned her tease into a soft flirtation. She kissed Cosima's hand. Cosima felt a little regret at her own comment, even though she was still a little bit pissed. She was so angry then that it was just taking a long time to wear out.

            "Were you raised in a sex positive culture?" Cosima said.

            "What does it mean?" Delphine said.

            "Oh, like, people learn about sex and consent and have like privacy and permission to find themselves," Cosima said. Her description petered out a bit. She wondered if that was sufficient. Delphine gave a sort of scoff.

            "Maybe at university," Delphine said.

            "Not as a younger girl, though?" Cosima asked. Delphine gave a slight, stiff sort of shake of her head. "I don't want to pry. I'm just… desperately curious." Delphine smiled at her at this. "Did you rebel?" Cosima asked and raised her eyebrow. She was hoping the answer was yes.

            "No," Delphine said candidly. "I hid. They can't possess what they cannot see." Cosima watched Delphine's expression closely for a long moment. "Now, it seems that I cannot hide from you, I guess," Delphine said.

            "You could if you really wanted to, I imagine," Cosima said. Delphine turned her head severely to the side.

            "I don't know," Delphine said. She looked over the length of Cosima, and Cosima wondered what she was feeling. She could guess a lot, but she really didn't know Delphine's thoughts all that well, with their context.  

            "You're still quite a mystery to me," Cosima said. She reached up to touch a lock of Delphine's hair and run it through her fingertips a few times. Delphine smiled softly at her. She seemed to disagree with this in silence. "So who wanted to posses your sexuality when you were young?" Cosima asked.

            "Every cultural force of authority wants to possess women's sexuality," Delphine said.

            "Legit," Cosima said. "Even the sciences, historically."

            "The devil hides behind the cross," Delphine said.

            "Or maybe misogyny hides behind objective science," Cosima said. Delphine laughed hard for a moment at this. She rubbed Cosima's stomach, where her hand was resting. Cosima grew distracted for a moment by how good it felt and went quiet.

            "Was university life a shock?" Cosima said. Delphine shrugged mildly.

            "It was very different," Delphine said.

            "How so?" Cosima asked.

            "More freedom," Delphine said. "Much more privacy."

            "Did you not have a lot of privacy before then?" Cosima asked.

            "I was sent up to boarding school for six years," Delphine said.

            "Holy shit," Cosima said. The concept blew actually her mind. She could not imagine. "What sort of school?"

            "A Catholic school for girls, very structured, very rigid," Delphine said.

            "That is like the _opposite_ of sex positive culture, right?" Cosima asked.

            "Probably," Delphine said.

            "Were any of the girls there involved?" Cosima asked. Delphine turned her head to the side in thought for a moment, before she realized what Cosima meant. She laughed then.

            "No," Delphine said. "It is perhaps human nature to want what's forbidden, and in that environment what we wanted was boys." She said it in a lightly conspiratory tone. Cosima smiled at that.

            "No boys. No lesbians," Cosima said. "Bleak." Delphine made a severe sound.

            "The perfect Catholic girlhood," Delphine said severely.  

            Cosima thought about Delphine's anxious panic when she kissed her the first time. No wonder she freaked out and basically ran out the door. She was used to being close to other women, then Cosima turned their relationship sexual all at once. Delphine just froze as Cosima stepped in close to her. Cosima felt absolutely certain she must have read her intent. Still she did not react, so Cosima kissed her. She thought she was just feeling shy. It must have totally blown her mind right before it totally freaked her shit and sent her flying out the door.

            "Were you happy at school?' Cosima asked.

            "I can't remember," Delphine asked.

            "What do you mean by that?" Cosima said. She felt totally alienated from any meaning in Delphine's response.

            "Happiness was not a question I was asked about back then," Delphine said.

            "But you didn't ask yourself?' Cosima said.

            "Not really," Delphine said. "I was quite interested in my studies. That was what mattered to me at the time. They gave a lot of awards each year for different subjects. I wanted to win all of the awards in the sciences." Cosima did not bother to ask her if she did. The answer was obviously yes.

            "Did have you any siblings?' Cosima said.

            "I had a sister," Delphine said. Cosima noticed that she stuck with the past tense and looked hard at Delphine's face. "She died when she was sixteen, and I was seventeen."

            "Oh God. I'm so sorry," Cosima said. She squeezed Delphine's arm for a moment. "How?" she asked.

            "She drowned," Delphine said. "In a river nearby our house." Cosima went quiet for a moment.

            "What was her name?" Cosima asked.

            "Lyra," Delphine said.

            "Do you still talk to your parents?" Cosima asked.

            "My father is deceased," Delphine said slowly, after a moment passed. Cosima gave a grimace of empathy and felt the shock of hearing about two deaths right in a row in this way. Delphine's face seemed very still and without emotion.

            "We Cormiers don't last long," Delphine said. "I'm practically ancient already."

            "What about your mother?" Cosima asked. She saw a barely perceptible hardness come into Delphine's expression.

            "She's alive. She married rich and moved to Provence," Delphine said.

            "Do you still talk?" Cosima asked. Delphine made an incredibly ambiguous gesture with her shoulders. Cosima decided not to ask anymore on it.

            "How did your father pass away?" Cosima asked. Delphine paused for a moment. She took a long look over Cosima's face before she answered in a steady, unaffected voice.

            "He shot himself in the heart with a pistol," Delphine said. Cosima did not know what to say and just put her hand on Delphine's chest over one of her collarbones. "He was a scientist," Delphine said. "Phyto-technology. He wrote a book. They still teach it in some universities in France."

            Cosima leaned up and dragged herself over to put her back against the arm of the couch, as Delphine went and looked over her bookshelf. She pulled out a textbook. Cosima read the name _Frederick Cormier_ on the cover. She opened it to see some of the diagrams, as Delphine sat down on the couch again, right in near Cosima. She put her arms around Cosima's knees and drew them into herself.

            "Were you two close?" Cosima asked.

            "In some ways," Delphine said mildly. "He told me all about his work. You should have seen the gardens that he made. I drew them, as a child."

            "You were artistic as a kid?" Cosima asked. Delphine cracked up a bit at this. She grinned at Cosima for an instant.

            "Anatomical sketches, mostly," Delphine clarified. "In colored pencil. And models of the grounds. He would move plants all over and add and take away to see what he could do."

            "How old were you when he died?" Cosima asked.

            "Nearly twenty-two," Delphine said.

            "How old are you now?" Cosima asked. She kept her tone very mild, as if to try and sneak the information out of Delphine.

            "Twenty-nine, Delphine said. She reached to gather the book from Cosima. She sat it on the end table behind herself.

            Cosima felt that this conversation had grown unexpectedly heavy. She hadn't thought to find out any stories like these so fast. She supposed it was the sort of thing that came up annoyingly soon early on in relationships. Although, on a second thought, she wondered how much Delphine talked with any of her other lovers.

            "How old were you when you started working for Dyad?" Cosima asked.

            "I was twenty-six," Delphine said. "Fresh out of university." She grew visibly uncomfortable and shifted in her position on the couch.

            "Big deal for a first job," Cosima said.

            "Yes, but I was only a lab assistant, at first," Delphine said. "It was in France. A small laboratory, not one of the Dyad's main labs or big projects. Our project manager there got sick. He had a heart attack. A lot of people were moved into higher positions, and I ended up with a better spot within my first year."

            "Lucky break," Cosima said. "How'd you get over to the states?"

            "A few of us from the lab were sent over after Dr. Leekie visited our lab for reviews," Delphine said.

            "Ooh," Cosima said. "He picked you out especially."

            "He did," Delphine said stiffly. Cosima saw that she held her jaw tense. She seemed a bit closed off to Cosima.

            "Did you get to work with him after that?" Cosima asked.

            "No, not for another year," Delphine said. Cosima could tell that Delphine did not like the line of her questions. Cosima reached over to rub her thigh. "I didn’t know he had two sides back then," Delphine said, as if in self-defense. "He's a very good manager. A good leader, and he really is a visionary."

            "Sure," Cosima said. She could see that actually. He probably took a lot of people under his wing. Maybe even Delphine, although she still had a hunch about their relationship she had not dropped.

            "You know those Freakie Leekies?" Delphine said. Cosima nodded. "They're a joke around the Dyad, but no one makes any jokes about them around Leekie. He doesn't like it."

            "He thinks of them as fans?" Cosima said with a smirk.

            "No," Delphine said. "He thinks they are imaginative, visionaries who simply do not have access to the science to see their own visions fulfilled. He respects them."

            Cosima didn’t quite know what to think about that for a moment. She had a felt sense that it was Leekie's genius as a scientist that made Delphine like him, but now it seemed also some other trait. She liked that he respected people.

            "Leekie is very egalitarian," Delphine said. Cosima gave a thoughtful "hm." "He doesn't judge people for the same commonplace reasons as others."

            "He just removes them when they get in his way," Cosima said.

            "I'm not saying he is moral," Delphine said. "But he is not an average man either. Not in any way."

            "I didn't assume that he was," Cosima said. She clearly meant if Delphine liked him. And Delphine caught this in her tone. She did not seem entirely pleased, but she did not quite seem angry either.

            "See what I mean?" Delphine said. She rubbed her hand through her hair. "I cannot hide myself from you."

            "Hey," Cosima said. "I'm not trying to judge." Cosima could tell that Delphine did not believe her. "Did you two ever have a thing?" Delphine sighed.

            "Yes, very briefly," Delphine admitted with a sort of sigh. "It was separate from the work." She gave Cosima a somewhat hard look at this.

            "Dude," Cosima said. "I know how good you are. I didn't assume it was like a power-play to climb up the latter or anything."

            "Leekie cares more about the science than that. Relationships are always secondary, even if they are important. I blew the encounter off afterwards, and he took the hint right away. That was the end of the story. Nothing changed at work," Delphine said. "Except with all of this."

            "So you're not pissed at him about your love affair?" Cosima said.

            "No," Delphine said. "I'm pissed at him for all his lying, although I'm not sure he really makes any of these decisions. He's been at the Dyad for a long time. I imagine it has changed him. I do know that he chose me personally to try to bring you in to work with the Dyad."

            "Why do you think?" Cosima asked.

            "Because he knows I love the science, and he thought that would convince you," Delphine said.

            "Does he know that I'm gay?" Cosima asked.

            "Maybe, maybe not. I don't know," Delphine said. "Though I can tell you he never expected this. I could tell, just barely, that he was actually disappointed. I think he saw an opportunity for me in my work with this assignment, and he thought it was lucky that the two of us would work more closely. He probably saw things potentially turning out in his favor on both fronts, and then the luck didn't hold out. Things proved unpredictable. Too many variables in the real world, as he often likes to remind us all in the lab.  

            "In general, Aldus doesn’t believe in putting people in those kinds of intimate positions with subjects. He was in charge of your assessments, up until now, which is why your monitors were always at a distance – physicians and the like. I was supposed to be your friend in order to bring you into the Dyad. He has good evidence on his side now, for his way of doing things, after Beth's suicide. Her relationship with Paul caused her very intense psychological distress. And it affected him, too, I think. Rachel's promotion of Paul is also an affront to Aldus, to prove that she's taking care of the situation, covering loose ends, and making reparations, when really she's not."

            Cosima thought of implying that she related, but that was in poor taste. She had a totally different thing going on with Delphine. Even if it was all mixed up with Dyad and their shit, it wasn't the same as being hired to pretend to be someone's lover with only a contrived story between the two of you.

            "Your job is really freaking stressful, you know that," Cosima said.

            "It's a lot more than I signed on for," Delphine said. "At least now, I get to work with you and Scott on something that matters, something I care about." Cosima smiled at her. They reached to hold hands. Cosima smiled then, as she remembered a conversation with Delphine from quite some time ago.

            "So that was just bullshit what you said about Leekie being 'too old,'" Cosima said. Delphine did not remember the reference for a moment, Cosima could see. Then she remembered. She gave a deep shrug and closed her eyes for a moment.

            "What does age have to do with it?" Delphine said. Cosima grinned at her.

            "Or sex, or gender?" Cosima said. Delphine gave a mild shrug and raised an eyebrow. "Those are all just cultural constraints," Cosima offered.

            "I think that they are," Delphine said.

            "Not rational," Cosima said.

            "Not scientifically speaking, anyway," Delphine said. "You can't get much data for human sexuality that you can actually trust. People lie, to themselves, as well as others. Probably it runs even deeper than that and affects the body, though I don’t think it can be entirely erased, just skewed into confusion."

            "The body just wants what it wants," Cosima said.

            "Maybe so. Or it can still tell the truth even if the mind has been put into conflict," Delphine said. Cosima smiled. She felt the sort of elated, full feeling in her chest that she often got when she and Delphine talked things through like this.

            They sat quietly for a moment. Cosima got caught up in imagining Delphine sorting through the data after Cosima kissed her that first time. She came back to Cosima's apartment with her theories all sorted out again.

            "I was really freaking worried that your boss told you to sleep with me, after shit went down after we were together that first time," Cosima said.

            "I know," Delphine said. "I am very sorry."

            "I thought you were like on contract to stay with me for two years or something," Cosima said. "I was actually worried I wasn't going to be able to stop you." Delphine sighed at that. She took Cosima's hand in her own.

            "Well, I am not able to be entirely moral, it would seem," Delphine said. "But I am also not average." She shrugged and gave Cosima a slightly defiant look, as if hoping that were enough. She meant she would not let herself be used in her work environment in such a commonplace way, Cosima thought.

            "Obvs," Cosima said in response.

            Cosima leaned over then in order to kiss Delphine. And Delphine kissed her with soft kisses that felt almost elegant to Cosima. Cosima still could hardly believe how much her own body would react whenever they touched. A data overload, she thought it just now, right after their conversation. She smiled even in their kiss. Perhaps this was a little too much truth to handle entirely objectively. And Cosima found that she did not really care. She just went along with it and trusted it implicitly. She honestly felt entirely lucky that Delphine arrived at something so much the same in both how she felt and how she reasoned through all of this.


End file.
